Are There Truly Downsides to Personal Branding?
October 1st, 2009
Recently, I received a Google Alert on “Personal Branding Atlanta”. The article that came up at the top was entitled “The Downside To Personal Branding”. This peaked my interest dramatically because I was curious to see what the author of the article was referring to when they spoke of the potential negatives. As I read the article I realized that while the author of the article, Ray Subs, is obviously a very knowledgeable individual I have to disagree with the ideas set forth in the article and I felt I needed to respond. I first want to provide links to the original article “The Downside To Personal Branding” and a link to some information on Ray Subs and the company with which he works N2Growth. My reason for this is that while I might find some disagreements I believe everyone should have access to the original information.
All that being said I want to directly address some points in the article and respond in kind.
He starts by asking the question, “what happens when something goes wrong and personal branding is revealed as something less than the miracle that it’s purported to be?” This is a question that obviously is very important, and while I think it is a valuable question I believe the answer is what shows Personal Branding to be one of the stronger ways in which to market, brand and manage the image of a business or individual. If something goes wrong with a personal brand, then it is very easy to spot the reason as to why. The problem is the individual or the people handling that persons brand. I know that sounds simplistic, but truly it is the essence of responsibility. If a person is out there creating for themselves a brand and image and they are not sure what they are doing or they think that there is going to be a true separation from the brand and the individual then they are dreaming. This does not mean that a person has to be perfect, but it means that they have to hold themselves to a standard with which they expect the brand to perform. What could be detrimental to one brand might be the secret to making another work perfectly. A great example of this would be someone who writes for a publication like “High Times” has different rules and branding imaging that they can follow then an individual writing for say “Guideposts”. Neither one is is wrong for the field they are in and the individual is making a choice that they are branding themselves a certain way.
This leads to the first issue that Ray brings up in his article that once you have branded “yourself” in a particular way that it is difficult if not impossible to transition into another area. I find this statement to not be true. He uses Donald Trump stating that what if tomorrow he wanted to go “from Real Estate to diving in the Olympics”. I find this to be a slightly extreme example. One that I think fits more into place would be Will Smith or The Fresh Prince. The fact that Will Smith was also teenage Rap sensation “The Fresh Prince” was perhaps one of the worst kept secrets ever. Yet when it came time for Will Smith to go from Teenage Rapper and Sitcom Star to serious actor, there was not a problem in repositioning his “personal brand”. In fact, he became even bigger in that he was able to effectively transition from one to another and showed himself to exceptional at both. Whether it was “Men in Black”, “7 Pounds” or “The Pursuit of Happiness” he has shown that a Personal Brand can be changed. So is the case with any individual even if you are not famous. The key in the transition is that you know you are transitioning into something that you are good enough to truly excel at. I will give you an example of a famous person who did not make a solid “personal branding” choice and it did cause him some flack and that is the great Michael Jordan. He went from being arguably the best player in Basketball history to being not even close to average on the baseball field. He tried to reposition himself, but he wasn’t as good and therefor the transition failed. Had Michael Jordan been a 30 Home-Run 100 RBI guy in baseball then the transition probably would have worked and we would know a different Michael today.
The next statement that is made is that “personal branding is not like company branding”. Once again I distinctly disagree and I think that companies through out history have proven this. Time and time again a company takes on the personality of those that run, sell, create or execute the company’s purpose. A prime example of this would be the restaurant business. It doesn’t matter if you have the best drinks, food and decor in the world. If the cook is screaming so the diners can hear, the wait staff can’t smile to save their life and the bar tender is drinking as much as the customers then the business falls. Take it one step further say that the establishment has the best staff, food, drinks and decor, but the owner comes in on the busiest night of the week and offends customers. Once again this is a failed business. We as individuals are always branding ourselves. This is more true today than ever before where “Relationship Selling” has become the basis for growth in over 80% of businesses. This is based on the individual and their interaction or branded image with another person. So I would say that personal branding is in essence the same as marketing a company, except this time you don’t have to worry about that 10% differentiation to make it work.
The last issue he brings up is the fact that a person is tying their personal brand with the company and if one messes up then the other is messed up as well. Ummmm… I don’t see anyway to avoid this anyway. I don’t care if you are a person working with a large corporation or the sole proprietor of a one man shop, you are going to be held accountable for the mistakes you make. In the corporate world they call it downsizing, changing direction, moving on, over-qualified, under-qualified or your fired. All of them mean you are the one that messed up (even if you weren’t ) please leave. In the case of a small business it means that you lose a customer and possibly the ability to go after a specific market ever again. However, in both cases your “personal brand” or “image” was tied to that of the company. Going the other way, if your company say depends on virtual assets and is based in Texas and ruins the retirements and lives of millions of people, it doesn’t matter if you were the CEO or the person selling bankruptcy insurance. Your “personal brand” or “image” will be affected by that it is just human nature.
The big question is, how do you avoid or lessen the chances of any of the negative things happening? How do you go about making sure that whatever “brand” or “image” you are building is not just a house of cards? You do it the only way it has ever worked. Find your beliefs, values, core and individuality. Discover the areas of expertise that you have and then work to not only do your best in those areas but continue to self-improve, train and attempt to perfect those areas. Hold yourself accountable and take responsibility for the things you do. Realize that you are not the only person looking at you and that when you are creating a brand try to get an outside observer to help you see what are the possible pitfalls and obstacles. Lastly, follow the one rule that everyone should know “have the knowledge of knowing what you don’t know” and when you find those things you don’t know, don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Categories: Digital Marketing, Marketing, New Features, New Marketing, Personal Branding, Social Media
